


the storyteller

by ballantine



Series: red wind of nassau [2]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, First Time, M/M, background silvermadi, obscurial!silver
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 17:32:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10470363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballantine/pseuds/ballantine
Summary: Flint still trains Silver; Silver still has no past.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've thought about writing again in the HP verse first depicted in [the sea cook](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8526028). Then 4x09 happened and John Silver turned out to be a 'void of human being' and gee, that sounded kind of ... _familiar._
> 
> Other than that, I have no excuse to make.

Silver breathes in carefully. He smells the sea and his own faint perspiration. He focuses, groping for that wild, amorphous pool of power that has been his lifelong companion. His breathing becomes more labored, his brows furrows, he feels _something_ building –

His cutlass flies out of his grasp and buries itself blade-first in the sand beside Flint.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he bites out and twists away in frustration.

He hears Flint approach but doesn't look over. Doesn't want to see that unshakable patience and faith on his face, not when he's doing such a spectacular job of failing to measure up it.

“You are still directing too much of your focus inward. You need to wield your power like you would any other tool, not unleash it like a flood.”

“Unleashing it is the only way I've ever been able to _use_ it.” Silver's laugh is tinged with bitterness. “Are we sure we don't want to just set me loose once we get to Nassau? From what I hear, I could make short work of the Governor's forces.” And the harbor. And the buildings in the city. Probably most of the people.

He turns around, offering Flint a smile to show he is joking. He doesn't receive a smile in return, just a stern lecture.

“A display of magic of that proportion would almost certainly attract London's attention; that they would see fit to _not_ investigate is inconceivable.” He pauses and adjusts his shoulders, adding more softly, “Leaving aside that small matter, I believe Madi and I would both rather mind watching you disintegrate into the wind.”

“I'd reassemble myself at some point,” Silver says lightly.

Flint is not impressed. “Perhaps.”

“Well, I've made it this far in life, haven't I?”

He hesitates at that, and Silver wishes he hadn't said anything. It's too close to their discussion of the previous day, the one where Flint asked him plainly for his story and Silver left him standing alone on the beach.

He wishes he could offer him something. But what little he does remember is not worth thinking about, let alone speaking of. It has nothing to do with the man he is now.

He's been named many things over the years– vagrant by muggle society; squib by wizarding; quartermaster by the crew; pirate king by Billy. Of the titles he has chosen for himself, there are but two: Madi's husband and Flint's partner. Those are the only ones that matter, and the idea that either Madi or Flint would look at him and see someone else, all because of something that happened long in the past? Unthinkable.

In the lingering silence, Flint's withdrawn again, his expression shuttered. He lifts a hand and murmurs a spell. Silver's blade sails easily into his grasp, politely proffering itself to him handle first. He relays it to Silver.

“We'll go again,” he says and turns to walk away.

“I wish I had a story to tell you,” Silver says abruptly. He watches him slow and still in his tracks and then finally look back at him, eyes narrowed questioningly. “I know it might seem like I am trying to conceal something from you. But the truth is, there is no story to tell.”

Skepticism, then. _If you’re trying to impress me, it isn’t working_. “No one's past is that unremarkable. And I especially doubt yours is, given your condition.”

Silver wants to twitch at the reference to his _condition_. “Not unremarkable, just without relevance. A long time ago, I absolved myself of finding any. In short: I forgot it.”

Flint draws closer, eyes sharp. “Forgot?”

He supposes to James Flint, the idea of anyone forgetting the wounds of the past is an altogether alien concept.

“It was an exhausting prospect, continuing forward and trying to account for all my life's events in the context of a story that would somehow define me. Events that no one could hope to divine any meaning from, other than that the world is a place of unending horrors.” He knows Flint understands that part well enough. “I realized — there is no storyteller imposing any _coherence_ , any sense of grace upon those events. And so there was nothing to stop me from — ”

He pauses, trying to think of how he can make himself understood.

“I don't know _how_ , precisely – I just know, it was me. I did it.” He shifts on his crutch. “The memories are gone. I remember enough to know that they were there, and I remember desiring that they shouldn't be. And then, quite simply – they weren't.”

He hasn't regretted it for a moment since. Whoever said a person must keep all the horrors heaped upon them?

Coherence is a curious word. He didn’t see it applying anywhere, not to the world and certainly not to himself. Inevitably both end up crumbling away into darkness. John has learned how to tell stories himself, learned how to construct a man bit by bit and hold it all together into a cohesive whole that he can show the world. _That_ is who he is, and who he needs Flint to accept.

“Was this before or after you manifested the Obscurus?” Flint asks after a long moment of silence.

Obscurus. Such a clinical term for the demon possessing him.

Silver shakes his head. “I don't know that either. Time is never very clear when I'm ...gone.” He watches the other man ponder that for a moment and takes a calculated risk by moving closer.

Flint's eyes immediately dart, searching his face. He holds himself still, wary even as Silver steps right into his space.

“You know of me all that I can bear to be known. All that is relevant to be known. That is to say, you know my genuine friendship and loyalty.”

Flint still does not move, so it’s left up to Silver to act. And perhaps it’s more fitting this way — he cannot give the other man his past, but perhaps he can give him his future. Display it hilt first, the deadly blade end pointing back at him who would offer it.

He lays his hands upon Flint’s arms, and the black chaotic power shudders inside of him. He gives him a chance to break the hold if he so wishes. But Flint doesn’t move, just continues to watch him with that intent look.

“Can this be enough?” he asks, and kisses Flint lest he answer too quickly.

He's wondered if this is something Flint wanted from him, and close on the heels of that thought has always been its corollary; can he use it? He's resisted both questions, tried not to think about it in that way, because he doesn't want to use anything on Flint.

He's his friend, and Silver's never really had one before.

It took him a long while for the next question to surface in his mind. He is gifted at communication, but didn’t know how to say this one thing, how to ask _would you? Will_ _you_? For all he knows, voicing the question would get him about as far as when he tries uttering one of Flint's spells. Perhaps nothing would happen; perhaps something would explode.

But Flint kisses back, an immediate _yes_ to all his questions _._

They kiss, and Silver thinks he should feel himself threaten to scatter, like he always does with heightened emotion.

But instead of his fingertips beginning to slip away, their hold is strong on Flint's arms. And where his curls would darken further and dissipate into the air, there is Flint's hand: clasping, anchoring.

He thinks, then, that he doesn't need more proof that he is the man he says he is. He breathes in, smelling the sea air and Flint, and remains perfectly whole.


End file.
